Halsey is well aware of the existing strength of the Japanese carrier-based aviation, although there are still many aircraft carriers, but in essence they are strong in the middle, maybe by next year, they will have a few fleet aircraft carriers that can be used, but now is the moment of their weakness.

His Essex-class aircraft carriers have already engaged in several small-scale exploratory offensives, with mobile units avoiding the fight. During the Battle of the Australian Coast, both sides lost a large number of warships and aircraft carriers, but these attritions were much more fatal for Japan, because its shipbuilding capabilities were far from being comparable to those of the United States.

Although Spruance felt that it was too early to strike, because the fighters on the deck of the new aircraft carrier were still not as good as the Wildcats, and the delivery of the new fighters, and the training for refitting was taking place in San Diego. Including two aircraft that surpass the Zero: the Pirate of Chanvorster and the Hellcat of Grumman, a new squadron can be formed in half a year. Waiting may be a safer option, but launching an offensive at this juncture is somewhat of a strategic and political imperative. It looked like the great counteroffensive was already coming, and the president asked the Navy to seriously consider further compressing the sea transport lines of the Japanese Empire from the Solomons. Chu Tingchang's fight in Southeast Asia was booming, and the collapse of the Japanese Empire was imminent. The president's other idea is that counteroffensives in Asia and Europe are unfolding simultaneously, and this is a moment when military must be subordinated to politics.

As far as Nimitz was concerned, it was quite difficult to choose the target for attack, because he did not want to launch a large-scale aircraft carrier operation with the enemy in a place where the enemy's land-based air force was strong, which would offset the numerical superiority of the US aircraft carriers, and the other problem was that he could not go to Australia to relieve MacArthur's encirclement, and the same reason was that it was too close to the enemy's land-based air force, and Nimitz felt that MacArthur's being trapped in Australia for a period of time would be beneficial to containing the enemy's forces, and the additional advantage was that the army would not interfere in the problem of counteroffensive command.

In the end, Nimitz and Halsey chose to attack the target they had to save, a new long-range bomber that was about to be delivered, which could be used as a starting point to directly bomb Tinian Island, a place on the Japanese mainland.

The U.S. military deliberately leaked some information, including the build-up of the 1st Marine Division in the Solomons, and the fact that Japanese submarines could detect the improvised port at night and transport the Marine Corps fleet to berth, which is of course a clear signal that is easy to interpret.

Halsey was not clear about the Japanese generals he was about to face, and after Yamamoto's death, there were some changes in the top ranks of the Japanese army. He himself was familiar with Nagumo's command, but he heard that Nagumo had fallen out of favor and might have Jizaburo Ozawa, who was said to have commanded the Battle of the Andaman Sea, which had a crushing attack on the British fleet, and was familiar with the new guided weapons and the use of shore-based aviation. Of course, due to intelligence leaks, the US Navy does not know that the part of the war is under the command of Takijiro Onishi.

The first horizontal bombers took off from aircraft carriers with a full load* and bombed the Japanese base on Tinian Island, where the Japanese army had a divisional shelf and an aviation garrison command, but there were not many troops.

There are many islands in the Pacific Ocean, which means that the defenders will be doomed to be passive. The Japanese scattered the forces of the 29th Division over a distance of more than 2,800 kilometers from the second island chain to Micronesia to the Marshall Islands. And on the island of Tinian, there just happened to be a division headquarters. The Marine scouts who went to the island to reconnoiter estimated that the army strength was only 3,000 or 4,000 men, and there were about 40 aircraft of various types, and there were strong forts in the landing area of the island, and some British and German artillery were used.

The new "Avenger"* aircraft took on the first attack. 40 bombers, carrying 160 500-pound* bombers, carried out surprise attacks on targets on the island, destroying more than 20 Japanese fighters parked in the open air.

The second attack, carried out by 30 Army B17s that took off from the Solomons, arrived slightly later than the naval attack, but each carried twice as many * as the Navy bombers. After installing a new gyro-stabilized bombing director, the bombing accuracy can barely compete with that of ground-to-air aircraft. The bombing succeeded in destroying the airfield on the island, temporarily preventing the Japanese air force from taking to the air.

The Japanese on the island immediately felt the pressure, and they identified the low-altitude bomb-dropping carrier-based aircraft and the high-altitude bomb-dropping heavy bombers, and judged that this could be a joint attack.

In order to deepen the judgment of the Japanese army, an hour later, two North Carolina-class battleships approaching the coast of Tinian Island launched an artillery bombardment of the concrete fortifications behind the beach with 18 356-mm heavy guns. The Japanese deployed several 37 fortress guns captured from the Jiangyin fortress at the end of 150, of course, they were no match for the firepower of battleships, and soon several large fortresses were destroyed by giant artillery fire. Sensing that the Japanese air force could not take off, the Washington, taking off seaplanes to observe, began firing at targets in depth. The shelling lasted several hours and shattered the illusions of the Japanese in repairing the airfield.

Halsey's main fleet, waiting 150 nautical miles east of Tinian Island, waited for the Japanese fleet to appear. Using reconnaissance from long-range aircraft and submarines, he was confident that as soon as the enemy approached, he would grasp it in advance. He was looking forward to revenge and send the mobile force to the bottom of the sea.

At the same time, the mobile force was passing through the St. George's Strait between New Britain and New Ireland, and did not choose a shortcut to go straight from the Solomon Sea, of course, in case of early detection. According to this speed, they will be in the vicinity of the Mariana Islands in four or five days.

Takijiro Onishi himself was aboard Ozawa's flagship, the Kaga, the only remaining aircraft carrier of the six aircraft carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor two years ago. The problem of Kaga's fleet being dragged down by its lower speed no longer exists, as Kaga became the fastest of the newly formed mobile units. Xiangfeng and Ruifeng can be on par with its speed, the Dragon and Phoenix are slower, the Flying Eagle and the Falcon Eagle are only 25 knots, and the Chongying and Yunying aircraft carriers are even lower to 21 knots, in essence, they are not fleet aircraft carriers, but using them to fill up the number is bound to slow down the fleet to this speed. The whole fleet is immersed in worry, too many ad hoc aircraft carriers have joined the mobile force, in fact, it has made the fleet less "mobile", and the latest information, the enemy has the old adversary Enterprise, as well as two or three new Essex-class aircraft carriers, and several cruisers converted into light aircraft carriers, a large number of high-speed cruisers and battleships, although the number of aircraft may not have much advantage, but its aircraft carrier speed is much faster than the Japanese fleet.

Onishi was the most optimistic of the fleet, he had already come out of the shadow of Yamamoto's death, and the new commander Toyota did not have much choice but to trust his new weapons and new tactics. Because he has been involved in the Makino project for the longest time and has the deepest tracking of new weapons, he now has almost a monopoly on the development of naval tactics around new guided weapons. The core of this hasty campaign was built around his new toy. Yamamoto's death, to some extent, unleashed his ambitions.

The victory at the Andaman showed the effectiveness of guided weapons, and the few missed* near Norfolk Island showed that the Allies quickly adapted to the weapon, although he had a new batch of weapons - a longer range using two different band seekers*. Although no information has been collected on the Allied side's destruction of the guidance method, Makino has long formulated an upgrade plan to deal with this situation, and with Makino's historical height, it is naturally clear that the use of deception and interference is the most direct way, and the solution is also ready-made, which does not depend on the design, but only on the improvement of Japanese tube technology.

The new * will search for targets in one continuous band, and before entering a dive attack, the target will be automatically tracked with a second type of pulse radar, which will make the enemy jamming unfocused, and if the enemy uses full-band noise jamming, it will lead to a ninety percent drop in jamming efficiency and distance, * may still hit the target.

Onishi did not go to command the bridge, he sat in the telegraph room and listened to the radio broadcasts. Solomon's Allied propaganda can be heard here. The Allied forces used these high-power radios to provide navigation for their own aircraft, and also used the Japanese selected from the concentration camps in North America who were willing to cooperate to broadcast Japanese news to deceive people's minds.

The latest news was that General Chu Tingchang had traveled to Cyprus to inspect the Allied forces with high morale and give an exciting speech. General Chu Dinh Chang said: A counteroffensive is coming in Asia and Europe, in which General Bargang will cut off the German bridgehead, and in Asia, his troops will enter Vietnam.

General Montgomery saluted Chief Chu and said that he would destroy the Desert Fox within a year; General Chu Tingchang's answer was even more exciting, he said that it would only take a week to take out the Malay Tiger. The two sides exchanged issues of concern in a harmonious atmosphere. At the end of the meeting, Chief Chu presented Montgomery with the saber of the three generals of Sakurai Province, and General Montgomery gave Webley in return*.

The root of Onishi's hated teeth itched. Two years ago, Chu Tingchang was only a lieutenant in the expeditionary force who drew maps. And now, it's talking about carving up the world.

But his good days are coming to an end. When Onishi left Kagoshima, he saw the newly assembled nuclear bombs, the first two of which weighed about 4 tons. One of them was given to the Army to go to Sumatra, and the other to the Navy later, to Luzon. The Ministry of War prefers to try one now in Sumatra and then decide whether to use a second one based on evaluation. Of course, how to deliver it is a big problem, not only because it is overweight and has a strange appearance, but also because the Japanese army (whether by sea or land) has no aircraft to transport and drop bombs. It is not known what method the army will use, and the navy has not yet come up with a way to deliver it. Onishi himself was inclined to detonate it with a suicide submarine, sent directly to the enemy's port.

When a herald came to ask him to go to the bridge, Commander Ozawa discovered a new enemy situation and wanted him to discuss it. He knew that Ozawa was at a loss for what he wanted now, and he desperately wanted his opinion.